Because you’re NOT worth it!
02.02.10
If you watch TV then you probably know the advert. The la-la music, the close ups of shining hair and then the punch line – ‘because you are worth it’!
That’s the L’Oréal ad. It comes to mind whenever I think about the NHS Tayside managers and their close ally Dr Buist. To them we here in Kinloch Rannoch are most decidedly NOT worth it. Or, to be precise, we are not worth the money that would be spent on restoring a local GP out-of-hours service. For Dr Buist that money would be better spent on ‘the poor of Dundee’.
That is the message that has been given by the GPs in the Tayside Board area through their representative Dr Buist to the Parliamentary Committee that is conducting an inquiry into the provision of out-of-hours care in rural Scotland.
‘Golden Age Sought’ - A Canard
The Health and Sport Committee heard from Dr Buist at the first of its three hearings where he was one of several witnesses to give oral testimony and mentioned Kinloch Rannoch several times. His subliminal message was that we campaigners are seeking a return to a lost golden age, when the local doctors were always there for you 24/7. In fact, there are maybe fifty practices in the Highlands where this still does happen and where there are healthy numbers of applicants whenever a vacancy arises.
The beauty of the Parliamentary proceedings is that they are fair. Just recently the Committee met for its second session, in the Loch Rannoch Hotel just outside the village. Mr Marr, the Chief Operating Officer for NHS Tayside, was there as one of the witnesses but so too were three of us local residents, one being a First Responder. The two of us who were there for the campaign got to tell our story to the Committee. Too many distressing episodes when the daytime surgery is closed, said we. A very good replacement service (and cost is a factor), said Mr Marr.
Third Hearing
The Committee has its third hearing in Edinburgh on 3 February. The principal witness will be a Minister, either Nicola Sturgeon or Shona Robison.
The Committee has registered that there has been a breakdown in trust (according to NHS Tayside’s own consultants only 15% of local residents believe that the Tayside Health Board is listening to this community). So it will be interesting to find out - as we shall when the Committee makes its report a few weeks from now - what lessons they draw from what has happened here.
I hope that they will nail the myth propagated by Mr Marr and his colleagues that it would cost an annual £556,876 to fund a local GP out-of-hours service (at the higher of the two hourly rates paid in the Highlands it is only about £140,000 and in some Island practices £50,000 or even less).
And I hope that the Committee will pick up on the overselling by Nicola Sturgeon of the official Quality Standards which she claims validate the present out-of-hours arrangements. They do nothing of the kind.
Dick Barbor-Might
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